1. The bank once again has a very large portfolio of UK government bonds – the results show Lloyds bought about £30bn of gilts in 2013, rebuilding its portfolio from £10.8bn to just over £43bn. This will ultimately improve the bank's net interest margin, as the new portfolio has an average yield of 2.58pc compared to 2.48pc on the old one. Sales of gilts earlier in the year added £787m to full-year profits, driving in part the bank’s return to profitability. This gain pales compared to the £3.2bn in profit gilt sales generated in 2012, but yet again shows how useful these profits have been in helping the bank afford its mammoth PPI provisions.

2. Borrowing has become a lot cheaper – in fact, the bank’s borrowing costs from being the highest of any major British lender just two years ago, have contracted by 259bp in the last 24 months. Today, credit default swaps on Lloyds debt is quoted at 76bp, 2bp tighter than HSBC, previously the country’s safest bank based on the cost of insuring its bonds against bankruptcy. This represents a potentially significant advantage going forwards as it suggests Lloyds will be able to fund itself rather cheaper than its main domestic rivals, namely Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland. Indeed, while RBS is on watch for a downgrade of its credit rating, Lloyds is expecting an upgrade.

3. PPI still remains a wildcard for and could see the final bill exceed £10bn – the surprise £1.8bn provision made by Lloyds earlier this month took its total compensation fund for PPI to £9.8bn, but the bank can offer no certainty that the cost will not rise even higher. The bank’s own sensitivity analysis makes clear a whole variety of factors that could up the bill. For instance, a £100 increase in the average cost of redress, currently calculated at £1,600, would increase provisions by another £110m. Even a relatively a relatively small change in the uphold rate of complaints could skew the numbers. A 1pc rise would add £15m to its bill. Of course, numbers could surprise on the downside, but few would bet against the number rising.

4. Despite fears about a housing bubble and increased borrower forbearance, the bank’s mortgage book is improving – now when looking at home loans it has to be remembered that interest rates remain at historic lows and that when things go wrong in property they wrong quickly, but the current trends should alleviate some concerns. As Britain’s biggest mortgage lender, Lloyds provides one of the best views on current trends and what it shows is somewhat reassuring. The number of mortgages in more than three months of arrears has fallen year-on-year to 70,895 from 76,473, while repossessions have dropped from 2,438 to 2,229. At the same time, loan to value have improved, with the proportion of mortgages at an LTV of greater than 100pc halving in the last 12 months from 11.7pc to 5.2pc.

5. The “bad bank” is being wound down – such is the pace of the sale of so-called non-core legacy assets, Lloyds has decided that going forwards it no longer needs to report them separately. This marks the closing phases of dealing with the toxic loans left on the lender’s balance sheet, in large part as a result of its merger with HBOS. Over the course of 2013, £35bn of non-core assets were sold off, taking the total left to £63.5bn. This reduction was well ahead of plan and was also done at a profit, generating £2.6bn in capital for the bank.

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6. This is a far less international business than it was – as of today Lloyds has operations in nine countries, having exited its operations in 22 foreign jurisdictions since 2011 and its change of focus back to the UK. This is ahead of target and has been combined with an overall simplification of the business, which has seen it shutting down hundreds of subsidiary companies.

7. Loans and deposits are almost level in the core business – this points to an interesting future problem for Lloyds as it transitions from a position whereby it was short of liquidity to one where it could well have an excess. As of the end of the year, core loan balances stood at £436.9bn against customer deposits of £435.6bn. With deposits growing at a greater rate than loans this will the bank could soon have to work out what to do with the excess deposits. One answer would be to follow the lead of the likes of JP Morgan and HSBC, each of which has been swamped with deposits in recent years, and find a safe home to park its money. Of course, it could decide to pick up the rate at which it lends.